


more than just surviving

by roarforaurora



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/F, Heartbreak, SO MUCH SADNESS, Sadness, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 21:47:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3666435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roarforaurora/pseuds/roarforaurora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For her, in this forest, there was nothing left to see. Nothing that these broken places, this <i>ground</i> could offer to soothe her pain. </p><p>Clarke had long since lost her wonder. She didn’t look where she was going anymore. She just walked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	more than just surviving

The forest had long since lost its wonder.

Its beauties were never again to be met with wide-eyed awe. That is what Clarke decreed. In her mind, she had made it law the moment she pulled the trigger for the first time. She would never again give herself away to fascination and curiosity. She placed herself where she belonged- in understanding and anguish. There would be no paradise here. Not for her. She had fallen from a tin box in the sky, from heaven, only to land in hell. Perhaps she had been too naive- what good could possibly be below heaven?

This Earth, where she had trespassed on land that she was supposed to have inherited, was what had greeted her. What had greeted them all. It had been a promise broken. She was too used to broken promises now. It was a theme in the story of her time here, a time she begged would just end. So, she wandered through its vastness, no longer searching for a utopia that had never existed.

There were places within it still left unexplored. There probably would be for centuries to come. Abandoned bunkers, glowing valleys and unknown beasts would continue on, undiscovered, and unscarred by the mars of man. The radiation would continue on as well, creeping through roots and riverbeds. Maybe some grounder villages would expand. Maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe there would be new war. Clarke knew that the Earth would continue to spin on its axis, but she didn’t know if it deserved to.

She had once breathed in the sweetness of the Earth’s air and thought about how lucky she was. Now, all she could smell was the metallic tang of blood. She would swallow it reluctantly, and it would inflate in her lungs until she herself smelled of gore.

For her, in this forest, there was nothing left to see. Nothing that these broken places, this _ground_ could offer to soothe her pain.

Clarke had long since lost her wonder. She didn’t look where she was going anymore. She just walked.

It was mechanical. Her wandering was not wandering- it was precise in all the ways she couldn’t explain. For all the reasons she didn’t want to explain. From tree to river to hillside to field. Her body took her there, back, forth, back again. Drank when she was thirsty. Scavenged when she was hungry. But she did not stop and she did not sleep. It would all catch up to her if she were to so much as pause. Her people, _their_ people, _all_ the people dead in her wake would finally catch up.

This anesthesia that her worn body had blessed her with, this numbness that kept her walking but not thinking, lasted all of three days. It was on that third night, kneeling next to the river, at first to drink and then to splash, to beg for danger. It was then, gently wishing for mercy in the form of the giant snake she knew inhabited the waters, that she cracked.

XXX

The moon was bright and high in the sky. Small, breaking whimpers escaped from her mouth and rose to meet it. No relief came from her cries. Just acceptance.

She had never been more alone, surrounded by living things. Floating in space, sealed tight and left to die, with no trees or grasses- she had felt less lonely then. Despair boiled hot in the pit of her stomach before it bubbled up, seizing her. Clarke choked out a sob. A thousand years of weariness was attempting to squeeze itself into her short life. It didn’t fit, but it was forcing itself inside of her regardless. She was bursting. She had watched stars burst from her window once. She had burst free from the confines of her ship. And now she was bursting again, splitting open and spilling herself into the ground below.

Her sobs and cries were loud and sloppy and slow. They seemed to escape her in slow motion as her head wavered from side to side with the weight of what she was releasing. Her hands dug into the dirt at her side and she gripped it tightly for purchase. She hoped that Pauna would hear her, or perhaps a grounder hunting party would find her. She wished for the death that she had so clumsily assigned to others. She wished desperately for the peace that she hoped would come with it and cried harder for the fact that it probably wouldn’t.

Instead, all that found her was exhaustion.

Sleep idled heavily over her head, pressing her deeper into the Earth. Her eyes flickered open and closed, tears escaping with the motion and dropping into her lap.

“Ah, c’mon now.”

She sat up quickly, eyes blinking furiously to regain her vision. Clarke saw the blurred edges of his shoulders, the roundness of his face. Her fingers pressed instinctively at the gun on her hip, even though she had used the last bullets long ago. She knew it was him.

“Finn…”

He smiled knowingly, crouched a few feet in front of her, eyes wide and teasing.

“What are you doing up this late, princess?”

Her mouth opened to answer, before it snapped shut. Her tears had cleared and she wished they hadn’t. Anything would be better than watching the pulse of the festering hole in his side. The touches of white decay that peeled at his skin. It looked as if a lover had traced their fingers down his face, leaving behind the rot that blistered across his cheeks. She felt a pang in her gut when she realized that she was the last one to have touched him. Gently stroked his cheek, whispered to him to keep the fear and pain at bay. She closed her eyes.

When she opened them again, he was gone.

She stayed focused on the spot where he had been, body taut and expecting his sudden return. Unblinking, she tentatively crawled over, letting her fingers brush where there were supposed to be boot marks. There was nothing except for a lingering heat she thought she could feel. It flowed in ripples underneath her palm and she laid down to press her cheek against it.

When she awoke, everything was sharper and clearer than it had been in the previous days. But the acceptance of her exhaustion had slowed her down. The sweet numbness that had been keeping her moving quickly, escaping all that was at her back, was gone. She couldn’t keep up with the pace needed to evade it. It was catching up with her. Finn, with his wry smiles and gentle callings of “princess.” And then there were those scarred, tiny bodies with voices she didn’t recognize. They were catching up too. She sat up abruptly, awake, listening, expecting. Her eyes scanned the area and landed on an object.

A small bundle of furs, placed delicately by her feet.

She built a fire and burned it with the last of her ability to forgive.

XXX

To escape the march of the dead that followed her in the night, she had taken to climbing high into trees. She climbed higher every day, always searching for the weakest branches. Clarke still had yet to encounter the children. _They_ can’t climb trees, she thinks, to give herself comfort and then she thinks, _They were too small, never got the chance to learn_ , which gives her no comfort at all.

Today, she is inside the same skin she fell from the sky in. The same skin that had kissed those lips. The same skin that had been soft, not hardened by callouses or betrayal. She’s half way in between ruthless leader and gentle, teenage girl and she doesn’t know if she ever had a choice. She itches at the skin of her ankle, which dangles from her spot on a branch.

Since her breakdown two nights ago, Clarke had avoided sleeping at all costs. The clarity that the relief of sleep brought her only made the pain that much clearer too. It seeped in from all around her, suffocating her. Oxygen was everywhere now. But she still couldn’t breath when she felt him pressing against her side.

“Are you searching for what you have lost, Clarke? Is heaven up in this tree somewhere?” He teased, his cheek tucked tightly against her neck. Her grip on the branch below her tightened to keep them both from falling.

“Well, if they won’t let you in, you know where to find me.” He whispered at her and she felt his smile twist into her skin. It had been the same when he was alive, and she had found comfort in that effortless grin. Now it just _stung._ It seared into her and she shook.

“Please, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Her pleas were impetuous, fueled by the tiredness that was anchored behind her eyes. When the image of Finn had haunted her before she thought it absurd to speak out. To acknowledge it publicly would have surely had her people questioning her sanity, and she couldn’t have that. There had been too much pressure, too much at stake. But now, all alone, there was nothing she could do but acknowledge him.

He was already gone. She bit her tongue and reminded herself that she didn’t deserve forgiveness.

**Author's Note:**

> hiiiiiiiIIIIiii. This is my first fanfic EVER, for my favorite OTP. if you couldnt tell, i am a 100% certifiable clexa trashcan. so i thought it necessary to make. there will be eventual happiness kinda maybe, but for right now theres a lot of motherfucking angst. and a lot of motherfucking sadness. because thats how i feel about these two little beautiful broken babies. 
> 
> come talk to me over at roarforaurora.tumbr.com! im really nervous, since this is my first, so any comments/kudos/suggestions, would be greatly appreciated. thanks for reading!


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